


Dividence and Destiny

by orphan_account



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Works at Denny's, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders is a Pole Dancer, Deceit | Janus Sanders is Anxiety | Virgil Sanders' Parent, Deceit | Janus Sanders is a Mess, Divorce, M/M, Morality | Patton Sanders is Anxiety | Virgil Sanders' Parent, Morality | Patton Sanders is a Mess, Post-Divorce, Surprisingly wholesome, They all need a hug, they're trying their best
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24275044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Patton and Janus are left reeling after a messy divorce, with their adopted son Virgil caught up in the middle of it all. Needless to say, things aren't going well. But when you've hit rock bottom, the only place to go is up. Old things are lost, new things are found, and maybe it's better this way after all.
Relationships: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Deceit Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 12
Kudos: 60





	1. Pole Dancing, Divorce, and Denny's

Janus felt like shit.

He hadn't slept, he hadn't eaten, and he was really fucking cold. He had just moved into this tiny craphole of an apartment and he hadn't yet located the thermostat. A tiny voice in the back of his head wondered if there even was a thermostat. He wished he could keep on watching The Good Place like he had been doing all night, but also didn't have wifi yet, and he couldn't afford to use up any more data. 

God, this was miserable.

He knew that there wasn't going to be anything in the fridge, but he looked in it anyways. Surprise! It was empty.

He pulled on his jacket and felt his pocket to make sure his nearly barren wallet was still in there. It was, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

Janus needed something to eat.

No, wait! Even better! Something to drink. Something with a solid amount of alcohol in it.

He left his apartment and locked it thoroughly, despite owning nothing of value. As he walked down the 4 flights of stairs leading to the street, he chuckled at the thought of someone trying to rob him. All that hard work and effort they would use to break in, just to find that his only possessions were a cardboard box full of unwashed clothes and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles throw blanket stolen from a college friend's couch. It was oddly comforting.

As he opened the door onto the sidewalk the crisp morning air hit him like a baseball bat to the face. Great. Since it was October now, it was only going to get colder. Just great.

Janus didn't know this neighborhood very well—wait, no. He didn't know this neighborhood at all—so he figured he would just pick a direction and start wandering. He didn't have anywhere else to be or anything else to lose so why not? He figured that if he walked in one direction for long enough he would stumble upon food, booze, or (hopefully) both.

He took a glance at his phone to see what time it was (6:30 am. Yeesh) and then decided to go, uh, that way.

He crossed the street and started walking, and he kept on walking for over an hour. You'd think it'd be easy to find food and/or booze in a city like this, but unfortunately, food and/or booze was expensive, and so far every place that he had passed seemed way out of his current financial ballpark.

Soon enough the sun fully rose and the functional part of society began their morning commute, and it was then that Janus found himself standing in front of a seedy little strip club on Howard street. "Manny's," the neon sign said. "Open 24 hours," the broken one beneath it said.

It looked like absolute shit. But, well, that seemed pretty fitting right about now. And it was open. And it did appear to have both food and booze.

Finally, Janus took a deep breath, accepted that he no longer had dignity, and went in. 

He got himself a sandwich and a beer, and both were terrible but hey, it was indeed food and booze. Sitting at the very back most table, he downed them both almost instantly and then got another beer. He drank this one more slowly, letting himself fully soak in just how shitty all of this was.

He was a shitty person sitting at a shitty table in a shitty strip club drinking a shitty beer and that was shitty. It was really fucking shitty.

Before he knew it, his sleepless night combined with the recent consumption of food and alcohol lulled him into a shitty sleep. He fell asleep right on the table, and he let it happen. He really didn't have any dignity anymore, did he?

Everything slurred and sloshed together in one hazy daze as Janus allowed himself to drift in and out of consciousness. Somebody came, somebody left. Music started, music stopped. The stream of grimy, horny douchebags ebbed and flowed in an almost entrancing way.

At one point there was more noise than usual, and Janus cracked his eyes open just enough to see a stripper in a sparkly green leotard dancing on a pole. The audience seemed to be enjoying it.

_Good for them_ , he thought, and then immediately fell back to sleep.

It was a weird sort of slumber, but you know what, who the fuck cared. Not him. Sometimes Janus would swear that he almost had a dream. Maybe he did but then he just forgot it. Was he cold? He was probably cold. That wouldn't be unusual. He wasn't cold enough to wake up though, so he kept sleeping.

He kept sleeping until someone was shaking him by the shoulder.

"Hello?" they said. "You dead, or what?"

Janus snapped awake more abruptly than he would have liked.

Standing over him was a man wearing a loose-fitting black button-up and a pair of ripped sweatpants. He had a rip-off designer purse over one shoulder, and his eyes were caked with makeup so dark it could rival the Grim Reaper. His eccentric outfit was then topped off with none other than an exquisitely groomed handlebar mustache.

What the fuck.

"Oh shit," said the oddly dressed stranger, "he lives!"

Janus shook himself from his stupor. 

"Just barely," he said. He rubbed his face, which was now numb from laying on the table for so long. "What time is it?"

The stranger pulled his phone out of his purse. It was an iPhone 4 with a sexy Garfield on the case. (Once again, what the fuck.) "7:30 pm," he said.

"Shit." He'd slept for almost 12 hours. 

_What_ , he thought for the third time in under 30 seconds, _the fuck???_

"You've been here for quite a long time, I thought I was gonna have to call somebody to pick up your body." For some reason this made the guy chuckle.

Janus blinked. "Uuuhhh, yeah, no. Just...tired."

"You look more than 'just tired' to me," the guy said, tucking his incredibly ugly cellphone back into his purse. "You want me to walk you to the bus stop or something? I'm scared that if I let you go out of here on your own you're going to get brutally murdered the second you step out the door."

Janus paused. He did need to get home. And he was also kind of really lost. And he might get brutally murdered. 

It then occurred to him that maybe this guy would be the one to murder him. He didn't know him. He could 100% be a serial killer, he sure dressed like one. But he was also kinda cute and Janus was really not in a position to care right now, so you know what? Fuck it. If he was gonna be brutally murdered it might as well be at the hands of this guy.

"Sure," said Janus, "I'm kinda lost anyways." 

"Fabulous," said the stranger, giving Janus a friendly swat on the shoulder. "Unstick your ass from that chair and let's go."

Janus pulled himself up with more effort than he'd like to admit. It was then that he noticed the headache that had been gently pounding his brain. Just great.

"So, sweetheart," said the stranger, "Where do you live? Not that I'm interested in visiting, but I gotta know which bus to take you to."

Janus patted his pocket to make sure his wallet was still there. It was, but he didn't really care.

"Uuhhhh...near Carey St and 6th Ave, I think?"

"You think?" The stranger chuckled. "Exactly how many drinks did you have again?"

They stepped out onto the sidewalk, and the cold air greeted Janus with familiar malice.

"No, no, it's...uh, I just moved. It's a new neighborhood for me."

"Okie dokie then," the guy said, "I'll take you to route 33. That should drop you right by that stretch of 6th Ave."

Under the glow of the streetlamp, Janus noticed something he hadn't before. Underneath the guy's button-up, he spotted a flash of green sequins.

"Wait, are you..?"

"The absolutely stunning pole dancer who just blew the boxers off of everyone in that club? Yes. Yes, I am." He said this with a self-satisfied sort of suggestive smirk, and although it usually would've looked asshole-ish on anyone else, for some reason it looked good on this guy. 

He started walking down the sidewalk and Janus followed 

"You look...familiar. Have I seen you before?"

"You go to strip clubs often?"

"Uh, no, not really." Janus had to force down a blush.

"Then you haven't seen me, you've seen my brother."

"Brother? Wait..." that rung a bell for some reason. "Oh! Is your brother an actor?"

"Yep," he said, with an unmasked hint of disdain. "Roman King, the crown prince of Broadway wannabes"

Yeah, that sounded right.

"I think he was performing at an acting festival that my ex-husband was catering for."

The strangely handsome stranger gave a pained nod of understanding.

Janus could tell that they obviously didn't get along. "I didn't like him all that much."

"Oh really?" He immediately perked up, his smile looking unabashedly cocky.

"Yeah," Janus said, "I thought he was too overdramatic. Seemed full of himself." This was not a lie. He—Roman, that is—was truly quite the prick.

The other brother burst out laughing, and as he did his face twisted into a knot that was somehow both terrifying and incredibly charming.

"I like you!" He wiped a tear from one makeup caked eye, seeming to not care about the eyeliner smudged across his cheek. "I'm Remus King. The noble duke of family disappointments."

Janus shook his outstretched hand with a smile. "Roman and Remus, huh? Your parents happen to like mythology?"

Remus chuckled. "Yep. Almost as much as they like irony."

Janus gave a knowing nod. "Same here. My old man got the brilliant idea of naming his son with vitiligo 'two-faced.' I'm Janus."

Remus gave another smirk. "Now that's a whole nother level of assholery.”

"You bet."

"You wear it well."

Fuck, why was it so hard to not blush around this guy?

"Thank you."

"You're very welcome. But, please, I'm aching to know. What in hell's name was a handsome fellow like you doing passed out at a smelly lil strip club like Manny's? You slept all the way through all three of my shows."

Oh shit. Yeah. He'd been there since, like, 8 am. That wasn't good. Wait, had Remus noticed him? Shit.

"I'm sorry I didn't get to see your performance." Nice save, Jan.

"I'm sorry that you were so blackout drunk that you managed to sleep through all the wolf whistles. You doing okay, hun?"

Usually, a little pet name like that (from an almost-stranger, nonetheless) wouldn't make Janus blush so much but this time it did. God, was he that starved for attention?

"Yeah," wait that was a lie. "Actually, no." Okay, that's better. "But I wasn't drunk. Just asleep."

"And you love taking naps in noisy strip clubs?"

"No, I..." God, was he really considering telling the truth? Maybe he was a little bit drunk. But weirdly enough, he felt like he could trust Remus. "I just got divorced."

"Ouch, sorry man. So, the 'ex-husband' thing is a, uh, recent development?"

"Yep."

"Damn, I'm guessing that didn't go too well?"

No going back now. This might as well happen.

"Yeah, no. He got the house, the cat, and the kid. I got a shit case of insomnia."

"Oof. That blows."

"I know! And he's allergic to cats! Why the fuck did he get to keep Reese Witherspoon?"

"Reese Wit—? Oh, wait. Is that the cat?"

"Yeah. He's a big fan of Just Like Heaven."

"Ah, I see. Welp," said Remus, suddenly coming to a halt. "I'm real sorry about your divorce, but this is your stop."

He gestured to a bench that Janus hadn't noticed before. A second look revealed the sign next to it, announcing "BUS ROUTE 33" in big block letters.

"Oh," said Janus. "Thanks."

"Here," said Remus, pulling a Sharpie out of his purse, "if you ever need a distraction."

He took Janus's hand and scrawled something on it.

Once he pulled away, Janus looked down to see a phone number, accompanied by "REMUS <3."

"Just call me. Usually, I got nothing better to do."

Janus smiled. "Thanks. Despite the circumstances, it's been nice meeting you."

He reached out his hand for a handshake, but Remus took it and kissed it instead.

"Please, the pleasure is all mine." 

With that, Remus turned on his heel and walked away, waving over his shoulder with a "Toodles!"

Janus just stood there in shock.

The only comprehensible thought in his head was that he couldn't go home. He couldn't just leave, not like this. 

He shouted after Remus before he realized what he was doing.

"Wait!"

Remus stopped and turned around again, and Janus jogged to catch up to him.

"Are you doing anything right now?"

Remus smirked.

"Well, I was going to go home and have a little 'me time,' if you know what I mean, but I'm open to suggestions."

Janus felt his stomach rumble. Oh, yeah, he hadn't eaten for almost 12 hours.

"Can I take you out to dinner?"

Remus giggled.

"Absolutely! I gotta ask though, Jan. Do you have enough money to take me out to dinner?"

Janus pulled out his wallet.

"I have, uh, 19 dollars and 69 cents."

"First of all," said Remus, "nice. Second, I know of a Denny's around here, how about that?"

Janus smiled. 

"That sounds great."


	2. Author's Note

Heya fellas, it's Sunny.  
No, this isn't a second chapter. sorry to get your hopes up. Unfortunately, right after I published the first chapter of this fic, I was slammed with a gargantuan onslaught of schoolwork. I am STILL dealing with that schoolwork, and I won't be done with it until the end of July. (Yaaayyy!)  
I still absolutely adore this fic, and I have absolutely no intention of abandoning it. I already have an overarching plot and multiple storylines planned out so HANG IN THERE! It's gonna be good, I promise. You'll just have to wait a little while.  
Now pardon me as I attempt to get the rest of my life in order. (Wish me luck.)  
Best,  
Sunny


End file.
